How do I keep my key from eating the plants?

[Ursula Huddleston]

My pond is 10 years old always had key and comets and ALWAYS had beautiful plants and flowering lilies. For some odd reason, this year they are eating the plants, I am unable to grow any water lily etc, my pond looks bare, very sad, any advice , I do feed them plenty. I love the water foliage, in addition it gives the shade

 

[sissy]

may not be enough algae or good muck on the liner for them to eat .Fish love any kind of greens .

 

[Gemma]

Welcome to the group!

 

[j.w]

@Ursula Huddleston
Not sure there is much you can do w/koi when they make up their minds they like to eat something in your pond. If they were just eating the roots you could put them in floating or hanging from the side netted baskets but if they are eating the pads and blooms it is another story.

 

[Mmathis]

Hello and welcome to our group. I assume you mean "koi" when you say "key."

 

[Faebinder]

IMO, it's hopeless.... once the koi are big enough and start to eat plants they wont stop.... They are always hungry and cant ignore the lily salad bar.

 

[sissy]

reason i built a lily pond but noticed the last 2 years they have not destroyed the water hyacinth like they used too .Maybe as they age they calm down

 

[Usman]

same problem here, u can add border bog plants so it wil look green and there roots wil do the job , cover them with rocks. For lilly and water plants .. u can create a portion using a nylon net barrier where larger fishes cant enter ihave made small pockets beside wall of liner using rocks on 2 sides and net on front side and added submersible plants in it

1st few years my fishes didnt eat submersible plants but one or 2 started and others learnt from them .

 

[sissy]

I use my plant pockets out of window screening and only roots the fish can get to are the really fine ones .With the tail of screening you can hold the pockets up with rocks to hide the tail also

 

[Cynthia Shelton]

Someone once told me "In a pond you either have plants or koi". I can only keep plants in baskets on the side shelves, and if their leaves dip into the water - goodbye.

 

[Angel]

"In a pond you either have plants or koi"

good do know AS next upgrade may be a dkp